Shroud of Eternity

CHAPTER 3

The beast was too enormous for the thickets of scrub oak to contain it. The thing slashed with a battering-ram arm, catching some meddlesome branches with long hooked claws. With a heave and a louder roar, it shredded the wood, leaving only strips of splintered oak, like ribbon frayed by a seamstress into a decorative tassel. With a backward yank, it uprooted the spindly trees and hurled them sideways. The creature crashed toward them, grunting and snorting like the bellows in a blacksmith shop.

Bannon ducked among the statue warriors, as if they could protect him. “What is that thing?”

“We learn something new every day.” Nathan planted his black boots in a widespread stance, bracing himself. He grasped the ornate hilt of his sword with both hands for a stronger grip. “But I suppose we fight it in the usual way.”

Nicci stepped in front of the two men and curled her fingers, felt her skin tingle as she awakened the gift inside her. “Stand back.”

The monster reminded her of an enormous rabid bear—or it had once been a bear. Its body was covered with matted cinnamon fur clumped with drying pus and blood that leaked from oozing sores. Its blazing eyes were wide set in the blocky skull. One side of its face looked melted, like candle wax left too near a flame. The eye drooped in its socket, sliding down its face. The cheek had peeled away to reveal a horror of fangs in its elongated snout. Thick saliva dripped out, mixed with blood from its cracked gums.

The furry body was armored in places with smooth, curved plates, like the shells of lobsters that fishermen sometimes delivered to Grafan Harbor. The hard plates were grafted onto the bear monster’s body, and in many places its hide was marred with branded symbols and geometric spell designs, much like the scarred runes that covered Mrra.

The creature came on wildly, intent on attacking them, hurting them, killing them. Nicci saw that the beast wasn’t just a ravening predator in search of food: it was in indescribable agony. Judging from the mutilation of its body, especially the festering brand marks on its hide, she knew that some human—some evil human—had shaped this creature.

No wonder the beast wanted to kill anyone it encountered.

Even though Nicci understood its reflexive attack, she did not intend to let the monster harm her companions. With barely a thought, she called a sizzling, turbulent sphere of wizard’s fire into each hand. The molten substance would engulf the bear monster and turn its repulsive form into purified ash.

She hurled the fireballs, one after the other, as the monster crashed closer, knocking lichen-covered trees out of the way. The first blazing sphere struck the beast—and merely curled around the furry body like hot fog, before spilling into the shattered trees on either side. The wizard’s fire ignited the dense scrub oak, but did no harm to the creature.

The second fireball slammed into the bear monster, only to roll off like water from oiled skin. The beast kept coming.

“It’s immune to wizard’s fire!” Nathan cried.

Nicci didn’t wait. She had an arsenal of other spells. She reached out with her gift to stop the bear’s heart, which would drop it in its tracks. Often, under extreme circumstances, she had wrapped a living heart with her magic and clenched to still its beating … but now her gift slid away again. She couldn’t touch the heart, couldn’t reach inside at all.

The beast stormed closer, undeterred. Just as the bear was upon her, she thrust both of her hands forward, palms out, and pulled the air together, thickening the wind to create an invisible battering ram that slammed into the oncoming monster. It staggered, paused only a moment, and lumbered forward again. The runes branded on its hide glowed faintly.

Nicci knew what was happening. Mrra was impervious to magic as well, thanks to the scar markings on her tawny hide. This bear had been branded with the same protective runes.

Then it was upon her, slamming a huge paw down. As she tried to duck to the side, the blow clipped her shoulder, and the force numbed her as she rolled.

Nathan dove into the fray. “Leave it to us, Sorceress. Come, my boy, you haven’t used your sword in days.”

Yelling, Bannon came toward the beast, as Nathan darted in, stabbed with the sword, and cut a long gash in the creature’s forearm. The bear snapped its misshapen jaws and swiped at the old wizard with its uninjured paw, but Nathan darted out of the way. He spun on one foot with unexpected grace and stabbed again, but his sword did little more than provoke the creature.

Bannon attacked from the other side, swinging Sturdy in a horizontal arc that caught the tip of the bear’s massive paw, clipping off four knifelike claws.

Nathan swung his blade down hard. The steel struck one of the armor shells and glanced off. Everything happened in a few seconds.

Nicci lunged back to her feet and saw that the blaze ignited by her wizard’s fire crackled in the underbrush, catching deadfall branches and the carpet of dry leaves. The fire would spread, and if it reached the dry grassy hills, the inferno would be unstoppable.

But before they could fight the fire, they had to halt the attacking monster.

Since her magic could not harm the bear directly, Nicci used her gift to wrench one of the stunted, burning oaks from the ground and threw the uprooted projectile at the bear. In a crash of sparks and smoke, the tree struck the monster, spraying fire onto its fur. Bannon and Nathan scattered out of the way as the monster tore the burning tree apart and came at them again.

Nicci set aside her gift and instead drew the two daggers she kept at her sides. In order to inflict harm with the short blades, she would have to be well within the monster’s embrace. She did not intend to be crushed in a furious hug, her ribs snapped like twigs, but she watched for opportunity.

Nathan hacked with his sword again, but the monster caught him with a backhanded blow. The old wizard flew twenty feet and his limp body crashed into a thicket of scrub oaks, where he lay stunned.

A tawny shape flashed past, and Mrra sprang upon the monster. Though the panther was much smaller than the enormous bear, Mrra was a killing machine, trained in some distant combat arena.

Nicci bounded into the fray, both knives held in front of her. As she stabbed, one blade clattered against the implanted armor, but her other knife cut into the tough fur. Striking like a viper, she jabbed and jabbed again, before springing away.

Mrra attacked with claws and scimitar fangs, tearing at the sword gash Bannon had made in the thing’s belly. The panther ripped the wound wider until entrails spilled out. As it roared, the monster sprayed ribbons of saliva. Its intact paw raked a line of scratches down Mrra’s hide, but the big cat didn’t stop.

Bannon stabbed his plain sword into the creature’s belly, driving the blade deep, all the way to the spine. Using both bloody paws, the bear clawed at the blade, then swatted at Bannon. As the young man reeled out of the way, his sword slid out of the wound, now slick with gore.

As Mrra continued to maul, Nicci worked her way close enough to the monster’s head that she could smell its fetid breath. She plunged one knife into its left eye, drove the point through the socket, cracking the thick bone, and into its brain. Pounding the pommel with the flat of her hand, she hammered the knife deeper and deeper.

Even that didn’t kill the bear, but Nicci used her other dagger to slash its throat, cutting through insulating fat and sawing through the tendons until she found its jugular. The razor-honed edge severed the vein, and spouting blood drenched her.

Mrra pulled away, dragging long cords of intestines out of the creature’s torn belly as if the big cat had found a new toy.

Bannon’s eyes flashed with the frenzy of the fight, a battle trance that sometimes caught him. With a wordless yell, he raised his sword high and plunged it point-first into the bear’s chest, cracking its breastbone and piercing its heart.

The tortured creature shuddered, gurgled, and finally died.

Bannon’s shoulders heaved up and down as he hunched over the beast, clutching the leather-wrapped hilt. When he looked down at the bloody mess, he began weeping, not just from relief and terror, but out of real sympathy for the poor creature. “I would have preferred a cleaner kill.”

A stunned Nathan extricated himself from the thicket, clawing leaves and branches from his hair and clothes. He held a hand to his throbbing head. “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. I was sidelined like an injured player in Ja’La.”

Even as the dead bear still twitched, the crackling flames of the growing fire caught Nicci’s attention. The scrub oaks burned quickly, and the mounded dry leaves on the forest floor provided a wealth of fuel. The flames rushed through the spindly branches. The blaze had already swept past the five statue warriors, blackening their petrified features.

Nicci drew several breaths, calming herself to focus on her Han. A forest fire was something she could fight, a problem her gift could solve. She called up the wind again and swirled a curtain of air around the rising flames, encircling the fire. A cyclone of dry leaves blew all around them.

Holding up her hands in a circular motion, she made the wind spin faster and faster, sucking the air away from the flames. She channeled it, choked it, drove the fire into a whirlwind pillar, which she tightened into a thinner spout, shooting a jet of flame high into the sky.

Bannon and Nathan ducked against the rising storm, letting the sorceress work her magic. Mrra flattened her ears against her head. Around them, branches crashed and whipped, twigs flew in all directions.

At last, the remnants of the fire flickered out, leaving only curls of smoke that dissipated as Nicci let the magic die away. The storm faded, and the oak branches stirred, as if in a sigh of relief. Charred leaves drifted to the ground.

Using his fingers to brush the tangles from his white hair, Nathan smiled at Nicci’s work, accepting it with little more than a shrug. “Thank you, Sorceress. That could have turned into a bad situation. If I had my gift back, I’d have done it myself.”

“You’ll be restored soon, Nathan. We will find the city.” Bannon remained doggedly optimistic. His hazel eyes sparkled as he looked over at Nicci. “Still, that was very impressive.”

Nicci was not profligate with her compliments, but she was honest. “Your sword work was also very useful.” In fact, she was embarrassed by her own failure to fight with her gift, annoyed to feel helpless. She could relate to Nathan’s plight. “Seeing those branded symbols, I should have guessed earlier that my magic wouldn’t work on the monster.”

Coppery blood and a rank, gamy stink hung around the dead carcass in front of them, overpowering even the smell of smoke. Mrra prowled through the underbrush, keeping her distance from the creature as she guarded against any other attack.

Unabashedly curious, Nathan knelt beside the dead bear, rapped his knuckles on the strange armor shells grafted to its hide. “Dear spirits, what would have created such an appalling creature? And why?” He looked up, blinking. “If a wizard had a gift powerful enough to manipulate flesh, why would anyone use it for such an awful purpose?”

Still staring at the fallen beast, Bannon wiped the tracks of tears from his face, smearing some of the blood on his skin. “Back on Chiriya Island, I knew boys who liked to pull the wings off of flies and roast beetles by dangling them into a flame. Sometimes, they did terrible things to poor cats and puppies.” He shook his head. “There is no answer for why people do terrible things.”

Nathan stood, brushed leaves from his black trousers, adjusted his brown cape. He regarded Nicci, whose face, hair, and black dress were plastered with gore. “You look a mess, Sorceress.”

“I’m sure I do,” she said, arching an eyebrow at him. Turning slowly around, Nicci surveyed the blackened trees, the smoldering trunks, the last smear of smoke that wafted into the air. “The fire would have been visible for miles, and our fight with the creature would have drawn much attention. So much for our attempts at stealth. We seem to have announced our arrival.”

Bannon and Nathan looked around warily.

Farther off through the forest of low oaks and the scattered taller trees, they heard branches breaking, a murmur of voices. Mrra crouched, growling, her ears pressed back. She sniffed the air as if she smelled death. As the voices came nearer, the sand panther bolted away, disappearing into the underbrush.

Bannon stared after the cat. “Mrra didn’t flinch when that monster attacked us. What would scare her now?”

Nathan swung his sword loosely, ready to keep fighting. “Perhaps we should be frightened as well, my boy.”

“Not frightened,” Nicci said, holding up her two daggers. “Prepared.” She stood her ground and waited for the ominous strangers to arrive.